The current state of art with regard to slurry hydro-transportation and vortex nozzles used to generate a fluidizing effect within a vessel or tank is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,978,251, 4,952,099 4,992,006, 5,853,266 and in International patent application PCT/GB 03/02370. All of these documents disclose an inlet section that creates a swirling flow and an outlet section positioned either within the inlet section or in close proximity to the same for the discharge of the material to the outlet of the container.
A particular disadvantage of the fluidizing units described in the above mentioned documents, is that the discharge duct has to be within the nozzle or at a close proximity to the nozzle. In practice, it has been discovered that a discharge duct is subjected to considerably more erosion than an inlet duct because the slurry discharge is more abrasive than the driving fluid of the fluidizing apparatus. Therefore, it would be advantageous to be able to operate a system in which the discharge duct is positioned some distance from the fluidizing nozzle and which reduces the wear on the discharge duct.